There's been a lot of Star Wars talk lately. And it always comes back to how poorly plotted those damn prequels where. How come one guy who can feel waves of the force can be so dumb as to not feel the evil in the evilest guy in the galaxy sitting across the room? How can the villain's plan be this all encompassing and yet this detailed, this informed?

I may have the answer for that last one. The Emperor has an throughout the prequels that relayed information to him. And he was there almost the entire way. R2D2.

Dun-Dun DA!

R2D2 first enters the plot of the movies as a repair droid who served on Naboo's royal air force, which is stationed pretty much in the Castle. This is a perfect position to send inside information about Naboo to the emperor, who could then give it to the Trade Federation.

When our heroes escape t through the blockade, he is one of several droids who have to repair the shield generators. The others get destroyed in eerily accurate fashion for being in a spaceship moving real fast against a mothership shooting directly at it. If videogames have taught me something is that shooting something is at it's easiest when it's heading towards you. So R2 "fixes" the problem, by hooking up two cables together and they get to Tattoine, but not before he gets access to the Queen, and he can just hang tight and listen to all the secret Throne Room gossip.

He Watches...From the Shadows...

This is where it gets a bit complex. Quigon Jinn, who is already not the sharpest knife in the drawer, starts getting himself involved in a bid to fix the ship in order for it to get to Coruscant, by getting a part from a shady scrap dealer, and somehow decides to acquire a young boy. Keep in mind, Quigon is the only person who agrees with taking the boy. Everyone else feels it is a bad idea. Obiwan thinks he's another mouth on the mission, The Jedi Council feel great danger, the audiences hate him. The only ones who feel he should be there are Quigon Jinn and George Lucas. And what do you know, first step down the ship it's R2d2, following Quigon for purposes of helping identify the part. Which he doesn't. Could R2D2 have been manipulating Jinn? Remember, Jiinn was not strong enough to manipulate some bucktoothed junk salesman. His mental capacities aren't legendary.

Then, out of all the planets in the galaxy, of all the towns in Tattoine, an Sith assassin manages to track them down to the exact place they landed in. An assassin who was earlier shown to be WITH Darth Sidious/Palpatine, presumably in Coruscant. SOMEONE told Sidius that the important people the Trade Federation was looking for where on some planet. I think it was R2. Sure, he's never shown to have that kind of intergalactic transmitting capabilities, but we'll soon learn R2D2 has many things we never knew about.

Eventually, though they make it to Coruscant, successfully play into a tyrant's ploy for power, and go back to Tattoine to singlehandedly stop the whole thing anyway. R2D2 stays with the boy and "he" accidentally flies a starship and uses it to blow up a bigger ship. Yes, a little kid who grew up on some third world hut, is apparently able to figure out a superadvanced ship, while his robot companion just boops and beeps, totally not manipulating the ship.

Autopilot, yeah sure. "Oh, this autopilot is totally taking me to a battle that will cement my status as a Force sensitive! Stop It!"

And so, "Anakin" successfully eliminates the main problem of the first movie. So R2D2 sticks with Obi Wan and Anakin for 10 years, until someone tries to murder Amidala, now a senator. He's the only one she lets in her room before her next assassination attempt, which is a shame, because his course of action upon witnessing the murderbugs a robot lets in is to not move and tell no one. Think about it, R2 himself could have killed them, as he's not possible to poison. Could have run 'em over with his wheels or one of those things that come out of him. He's clearly not only observing it, but he must have told the bad guys where she was in detail.

He then goes on to participate on Anakin's breaking of his Jedi vows and his fall to the Dark side. This is pretty creepy. Think about it: This guy is killing children within his sight! And he doesn't intervene, he doesn't tell anyone. He's not unfazed. You assume he's friends with someone, that he has some kind of ethics. If he's willing to sit out events like this, why not assume he'd actually manipulate them?

Then he throws C3PO into a factory to almost certain dissasembly. And he flies above it all with his rockets. It's important, this rockets have never been used in the service of anyone else. But we're already seeing a picture of a character with no scruples, who, while all his "friends" go on to a death duel with supermonsters, he's off minding his own business. I guess he sort of helps C3PO from the situation he put him on later. We all know about these two. But from the looks of it, it's a rather abusive relationship.

It is an order! Marry them...NOW!

So R2 goes on to witness the wedding of Anakin. Of note: He's not just ANAKIN'S robot. He works along with Obi Wan. So, it doesn't ever come up, like for accident or something. Or He doesn't tell anyone?"Beep Eep, Oooooo! What's that, Artoo? Married to Padme?"

By the next movie, the only 5 people know of the marriage: the couple, R2 and 3pio and Senator Palpatine. How this last one knows, hhmm... I just can't say...

But here's a picture suggesting the answer.

So the mission to rescue Palpatine kicks off Ep 3, and R2D2 is, as always, the one surviving robot. It is here he hints at his multiple combat capabilities. Besides flying, he can shock things with a taser, and douse them in fuel. He can even do a thing I don't understand.

But whatever it is I would never want something this dangerous happening near me, at crotch level.

This abilities never come up in dangerous situations. Even when it does, it's usually on a ship, where R2 himself is in danger. When it's about helping other people, it's like he's very selective...

So, when the real bad shit goes down, R2 immediately sides with Darth Badguy on the murder of The last of the Separatists, as well as Obiwan. It's actually a little surprising that Obi Wan later picks him up and gives him to Jimmy Smits who has C3Po mindwiped and not him. This means that, going in to the original trilogy, R2 knew everything: Luke's Father, the whole conspiracy everything, that Obi Wan is a Jedi... He never uses any of that. He never uses any of his abilities again. He's evil, I tell you!

Or this movies are badly written. I don't know. Whichever makes most sense, I guess.